Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Very International Names (boys)

Boys turn!
Again, I decided to try and find out what are currently the most popular name families in the Western world. This data was compiled from the 2014 or 2015 (depending on what was available) Top Names lists from 16 countries (US, England & Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Belgium).
Variants of one name were mostly all grouped together--exceptions were if the names are generally thought of as distinct names (e.g. Jacob and James) or for nicknames that have multiple full forms (so Max was counted alone, not grouped with Maxwell, Maximo, or Maxmilian).
In total there were approximately 386 name 'families', not that far off from the girls' 408.

  • William/Liam/Wilhelm/Guillermo/etc--31 instances
    Lists without: Iceland
  • Lucas/Luke/Luca/etc--31 instances
    Lists without: Iceland, Hungary
  • Alexander/Alex/Alessandro/etc--29 instances
    Lists without: Finland
  • John/Sean/Ian/Johannes/Jan/Ivan/Evan/etc--29 instances (easily the most diverse set, BTW!)
    Lists without: Finland
  • Matthew/Matteo/Matias/etc--26 instances
    Lists without: none
  • Jackson/Jack--22 instances
    Lists without: Finland, Iceland, Norway, Spain, Italy, Hungary
  • Oliver/Alvaro/Ollie/etc--22 instances
    Lists without: Italy, Belgium
  • Jacob/Jake/Giacomo/etc--21 instances
    Lists without: Finland, Iceland, Hungary
  • Thomas/Tom/Tomas/etc--20 instances
    Lists without: Finland, Norway, Sweden, Spain
  • Daniel/Dan/etc--19 instances
    Lists without: none
  • Leo/Leon/etc--19 instances
    Lists without: Iceland, Italy, Hungary
Benjamin, Samuel, Eli, Louis, Nicholas, Joseph, James, David, Michael, Robert, and Theodore finish out the Top 20. (Okay, 22. There were ties)


And again, the country with the most 'unique' names was Iceland, with 40% of the Top 50 not appearing on any other top names list:
Guðmund, Gunnar, Dagur, Arni/Arnar, Bjarki, Kári, Andri, Jökull, Ásgeir, Baldur, Birkir, Hilmar, Elvar/Elfar, Björn, Haukur, Styrmir, Ari, Eyþor, Frosti, and Sindri

Hungary's Top 100 is just under 40% 'unique' names:
Marcell, Balázs, Zalán, Botond, Laszlo, Zsombor, Ákos, Attila, Nimród, Roland, Csaba, Zétény, Hunor, Ábel, Szabolcs, Kornél, Norbert, Bendegúz, Ármin, Tibor, Csongor, Imre, Soma, Brendon, Kende, Dénes, Csanád, Bertalan, Donát, Zente, Szilárd, Zsigmond, Dorián, Flórián, and Zénó.

Sweden's Top 100 is about 1/4 'unique' names--Arvid, Melvin, Edvin, Sixten, Albin, Gustav, Melker, Malte, Ebbe, August, Viggo, Colin, Loke, Wilmer, Vidar, Milton, Elton, Vilgot, Otto, Tage, Hjalmar, Maximilian, Algot, Linus, Ture, and Folke.

Spain's Top 100 is about 1/5 'unique' names--Sergio, Izan, Gonzalo, Bruno, Raul, Jesus, Aitor, Rodrigo, Asier, Unai, Ismael, Alonso, Biel, Gael, Ignacio, Nil, Saul, Aimar, and Yeray.


As expected, the English-speaking countries all share a lot of names. England & Wales has only two 'unique' names (Dexter and Ronnie), N. Ireland, Australia, and Canada each have 3 (Conan, Caolán, and Dáithí; Bailey, Mitchell, and MaxwellJeremy, Declan, and Emmett; respectively); and New Zealand has five (Arlo, Nixon, Ezra, Quinn, and Cohen). 

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